


Wrong

by Leni



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Reality, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 13:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4920805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Dawn <i>had</i> brought Joyce back from the dead?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Evil_Little_Dog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Little_Dog/gifts).



> Written for ELD at [Comment Fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/658432.html?thread=88308224#t88308224). Prompt: **Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Joyce Summers+Dawn Summers+Buffy Summers, Dawn succeeds in bring Joyce back from the dead. She comes back wrong.**

The death certificate must have been a technical hiccup. The funeral arrangements, some clerical mistake. There were phone calls with apologies to the family for the dreadful misunderstanding, but no one sounded too shocked.

In Sunnydale, this was hardly the first time someone had been pronounced dead by a professional medical team one day, and turned up walking the streets the next.

"It's like it never happened," Dawn whispered at breakfast a few days later, watching as their mom rooted in the fridge for more eggs.

Buffy wanted to smile. Reassure her sister.

But the woman living in their home hadn't remembered a second child at all, not until they'd shown her the pictures and the videos. Even now, she stared at Dawn in puzzlement when the girl didn't notice. 

Dawn consoled herself with the knowledge that memories of Buffy were spotty as well, and any conversation related to the supernatural met with a blank stare.

"She still won't remember everything," she reminded her sister.

Dawn's face fell. She'd taken it hard, when Joyce had looked at her and wondered why she'd come along to Revello Drive. "She's getting better," she insisted. "It was the right thing to do. I know it was."

Buffy made herself nod.

It was her mother, too. She still couldn't remember that unresponsive body on the sofa without tears coming to her eyes. ( _Mom?_ ) After years of resigning herself to die young, it had seemed impossible that her mother would leave first. ( _Mom!_ ) 

Of course she was glad to have Joyce back.

But sometimes she wondered if they got the right person.

if it weren't for little details like the way her mother still hummed as she folded the laundry and the cup of coffee with two sugars she had first thing in the day for as long as Buffy could remember, Buffy would suspect that something else had taken residence in her mother's body and was fooling them.

Perhaps she'd even have preferred that option.

It would be easy to go after a demon wearing her mother's skin. A stake, a sword, a phone call to Giles for information.

But there was no monster to slay.

Instead, Buffy was left with no idea how to deal with a woman she had loved and trusted, and now didn't remember the important things about her. When they were together, Joyce asked about school and her friends, as if ticking off a mental list of things parents worry about, and once the short exchange was over, Buffy always felt so uncomfortable she ran back to the dorms as soon as she could.

How Dawn could live here, and still hope that their situation would improve, Buffy didn't know.

_She came back wrong._

Spike's words, the day after they'd settled her mother at home. He'd come after the others, just as curious to see how it looked when the dead were returned to life. He hadn't stayed for two minutes in the same room as Joyce before he'd made his excuses.

Buffy had run into him a few hours later after sundown, and when he'd tried to avoid the subject, she'd demanded an explanation. An untrustworthy ally, yes, but he'd been around for decades and there was little that made him scurry away,

In the end he'd relented with a scowl - and several feet of distance from her. _It was a mistake, to try to bring her back. She looks like Joyce - hell, she smells the same! - but there's nobody home._

Buffy had protested that it had worked, putting all the confidence she wanted to feel into the words, but Spike had laughed.

_Admit it - she came back wrong!_

Buffy had scoffed at him. Thrown out that the soulless undead had no place to talk.

The insult had rolled off him, and he'd given her a pitying glance. _That's not the real Joyce, Slayer,_ he'd told her before he shrugged and marched away. _And you know it._

Buffy glanced at her mother now, trying to ignore those words. Joyce looked up, eggs in hand and now looking for a bowl to mix them in, and their gazes met.

"Everything all right, darling?"

Her mother's voice. A mother's worry in it.

The omelet she was making would taste the same as it had since Buffy's childhood.

But there was that slight hesitation in her eyes, as if she had to check with herself who it was she was talking to.

"Just real hungry," Dawn cut in, beaming.

Buffy wished for that happy obliviousness.

"Ravenous," she agreed, trying for a smile.

Again, that pause before her mother smiled back. Then she turned toward the stove, and Buffy let out a long breath.

"Buffy?" her sister asked, concerned.

Buffy shook her head. "Nothing's wrong," she said.

The uneasy feeling at the pit of her stomach contradicted her.

 _Nothing,_ she allowed at last, glancing over at the woman making breakfast for three. _Except, perhaps, you._

 

The End  
02/10/15


End file.
